Subject: PELOSI -- Remarks at House Democrats’ Steering & Policy Committee Hearing: 'The Zika Public Health Crisis: the Urgent Need for the President’s Emergency Funding Request’
From: Democratic Leader <[email-masked]>
To: Undisclosed recipients:;
Date: Thu, 12 May 2016 22:43:37 +0000

<http://www.democraticleader.gov/>

    May 12, 2016

Contact: Drew Hammill/Evangeline George

202-226-7616

Pelosi Remarks at House Democrats’ Steering & Policy Committee Hearing:

'The Zika Public Health Crisis: the Urgent Need for the

President’s Emergency Funding Request’

Washington, D.C. – Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi delivered remarks today at House Democrats’ Steering & Policy Committee hearing entitled 'The Zika Public Health Crisis: the Urgent Need for the President’s Emergency Funding Request’.  Below are the Leader’s opening and closing remarks:

Leader Pelosi’s Opening Remarks

“Good afternoon, everyone.  Thank you very much to our Members, especially, to our very special guests for joining us this afternoon on subject of great concerns to our great country.  I am so grateful to the Co-Chairs of the Steering and Policy Committee, Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro and Congresswoman Donna Edwards for bringing us together this afternoon.  It is my privilege now to call to order this hearing: ‘The Zika Public Health Crisis: the Urgent Need for the President’s Emergency Funding Request’.

“Every day, we learn more about the accelerating threat that the Zika virus presents to expectant mothers across the country.  Every day, we lose valuable time needed to avert what could be a major public health emergency in communities across our country.  And yet every day, this Congress refuses to provide the emergency resources needed to protect America’s families from this terrible virus.

“There are already more than 1,000 Americans – including more than 100 pregnant women – with confirmed cases of Zika; but House Republicans do nothing.  Last month, Congress voted twice to block emergency resources to protect American communities from Zika.  We refuse to stand idle. We will keep demanding action.

“Today, we are very honored to hear from a distinguished board of witnesses who stand on the front lines of the fight against Zika in our country.  We are pleased to welcome Mayor Mitch Landrieu, Mayor of the City of New Orleans, Louisiana; Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, some call him a hero – the NIH – and Dr. Anne Schuchat, a Principal Deputy Director, Centers for Disease Control.

 

“Our guests have a clearer perspective than anyone about how Congress’s dangerous refusal to address the threat of Zika in a timely way could have tragic consequences for America’s families.  They will be more fully introduced by our distinguished Co-Chairs.  And we all know that we must pass the President’s $1.9 billion emergency supplemental request – which the Congress has been obstructing for months.

“To the Congress we say:  Do your job. Stop standing in the way of the emergency action we need to protect America’s families.  Do your job.  Join us in averting this frightening public health crisis.  Do your job.  Swiftly and fully-fund the President’s request for emergency funds to address the Zika threat in America.

“With appreciation to our special guests for their great service to our country and for their statements that they are presenting today, I am yielding to our distinguished co-Chair, Rosa DeLauro.”

Leader Pelosi’s Closing Remarks

“I thank our Members – we had nearly 30 Members of the House of Representatives here for this hearing today, which is, in light of all of the things that are going on here, a very large number.  We thank you all for coming.  Thank you.  Some of them are Ranking Members of committees – as is Maxine Waters.  So, she has her own responsibilities and Financial Services.  Some of them are Cardinals on Appropriations, as is [Congresswoman] Marcy Kaptur, where this discussion will continue, maybe tomorrow but certainly, next week.  Thank you, Mr. [Steve] Cohen, for joining us as well.

“I thank all of our Members but especially, on behalf of all of our Members, I thank our witnesses for your very, very excellent and informed and valuable testimony today.  It is a balance that we have to strike because we don’t want to instill fear, and yet we want to be prepared.  And you have helped to channel our passions into some dispassionate approaches to get this done.

“Mr. Mayor, you talked about being the point of a spear if something hits or in anticipation – I love the word ‘anticipation.’  I wish everyone would anticipate.  Right now, we have a challenge to get people to even respond right here, and I don’t know why.

“And you, Dr. Fauci, talked about reaching a point – if you don’t have enough money, if you have some money, and you get to a point in research, before you can go to the next point, you have to know that the resources are there.  So, that’s why it’s very important for us to have your documentation, your justification for the funds that the Administration is asking for.

“And of course, we thank you, Dr. Schuchat, for what you have done with the CDC and others at the CDC.  And you’re in charge of public health in our country.  I really do think, as Mr. [Dan] Kildee suggested, there has to be a bigger look at this.  Congresswoman DeLauro has been talking about and working, even trying in a bipartisan way, to develop a fund that is there so that it can be called upon – a bit similar to FEMA – that has to be replenished and the rest.  I don’t know if that will be possible.  It shouldn’t have to be possible; it should be clear that when there’s an emergency that we couldn’t have possibly have anticipated – Zika – back 18 months, 16 months, the beginning of this Congress, Zika.  And yet now, for months, it has been an underfunded emergency, money coming from Ebola.  And Ebola money is so necessary even if it is offshore, even if it’s in Africa because containing it there is important to humanity but it’s also from a practical standpoint, some people in our country a message that we can say that keeps us safer.

“You all in one way or another are involved in public health.  And I really do think that the public health service, the public health delivery, is something that the American people don’t fully appreciate.  And it’s such a spectacular manifestation of the public sector.  It’s something that people cannot do for themselves, no matter how ‘Ayn Rand-ish’ they want to be.  They just can’t do it for themselves.  So, I think we also have to do – again, as Mr. Kildee was saying: how do we raise awareness of how important all of this is on a calm day much less on a day when we’re under threat.  And maybe we can work together in a big-picture, longer term way to impress upon the public through public service announcements, whatever it is, speeches by public officials, all of you that you are there for the public health of every person in America.

“And when you look at those charts and you see the maps where it is – well, some people may say ‘I live in the North’ – as you said, Marcy [Kaptur] – ‘I live in the North, so it’s not affecting me.’  But every one of these people are our children.  All of these children are our children.  When Dr. Schuchat talked earlier, Maxine [Waters], about it might cost $10 million to care for a child who was affected by Zika.  And that’s a child that might never be able to walk, talk, see, hear or anything, comprehend.  But $10 million.  I mean, the impact is much more of a concern than the [cost].  But it’s such a false dichotomy not to get ahead of this – we all know that it’s self-evident, but ever certainly, it is not that self-evident to some selves around here.  And that’s what we have to, in a non-menacing way, get across.

“So, I’m suggesting maybe in addition to some of the wonderful suggestions we have, something – following up on Dan when he said if there’s a fire, put out the fire; don’t talk about how this fire got started until after we put out the fire – that we have like a ‘break the glass’ kind of an approach to this.  Break the glass.  But when you break the glass, you have a solution right there.  You have a solution.  Somebody’s going to come, you’re going to spray – whatever it happens to be the word has gone out.  So, I think we have to take the public to a different place.

“I’ve been thinking about this for a while – we go back so many decades, Dr. Fauci, on HIV/AIDS and then so many things after that.  And thank you for your leadership.  And as the mayor knows, I appreciate fully what he had to say about all of this and I’m sympathetic to – I’ve sat in on many meetings, hearings, awards ceremonies to know how important the public health service is to our country.  I just want everybody to know that so when we’re asking for resources, we don’t have to say – of course we want a justification, I’m an appropriator.  As we have an expression: it’s not the price, it’s the money.  We always say: what you need we want you to have; now where are we going to get the money.  You give us the justification for it so we can compete.  But we shouldn’t have to compete.  This should be an emergency, so thank you for hearing me out.

“I didn’t get a chance to ask questions so I’m abusing my privilege as Leader to expound.  But that’s all to say how much we appreciate not only your testimony here but your leadership in your city and your region and at the NIH and at CDC and to our country.  I’m going to yield to our co-Chairs to have the last word.”

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